Update: Sitters for Scholars is Closing Operations

December 22, 2025

To our Valued Student Parents, Volunteers, Community, Education Partners, and Generous Donors,

Ten years ago, Sitters for Scholars (nee Sitters Without Borders) opened its doors with a simple, compelling mission: to help low-income student parents further their education by providing free, volunteer in-home babysitting while they were in class or studying. With a small but mighty team of volunteers, staff and activist board members, our nonprofit made a positive impact on the lives of many student parents in the Greater Boston area. But over the years, our simple idea proved extremely complex to implement, grow and sustain. Today, with a heavy heart, we announce that Sitters for Scholars is closing.

Our decision was difficult and long in coming. In all honesty, COVID nearly killed us, as we had to suspend services for most of 2020 and 2021. Hopes ran high in early 2022 when we began to serve student families again, but we soon discovered that the world had changed. Some student parents were still hesitant to welcome babysitters into their homes. They were also now taking a majority of their courses online. This made individual student family schedules even harder to match with the schedules of volunteers, who had also become harder to attract.

In 2023 the Board embarked on a strategic planning process that identified volunteer recruitment and retention as an important focus. By necessity, we began to use some paid sitters to cover shifts where no volunteer schedules matched. Our small size meant that every staff transition and fundraising bump presented obstacles; obstacles that became harder and harder to overcome.

In May 2025, with the number of student parents dwindling and the departure of Sitters’ last staff, the Board decided to temporarily suspend services. We wanted to take the time to evaluate our program model and organization. Via online surveys and lengthy conversations, we connected with former Sitters families and potential new ones, with volunteers and our nonprofit partners in the community and educational institution staff whose students we served.

That introspection proved heartwarming and insightful. It reaffirmed that to reach their educational goals, student parents still need help caring for their kids and that Sitters made a difference in the lives of many families in the Greater Boston area. But it also helped us recognize that we did not have a viable program model and that no new model of babysitting service presented itself as scalable and sustainable. Finally, our small size and lack of staff made fundraising for such an uncertain future untenable. The Board has begun the legal process of dissolving. When it is over, we will disburse the remainder of our funds to another nonprofit, as yet unnamed, whose mission is most compatible with our desire to help low-income student parents get an education and put their families on solid economic footing.

We will cherish the special moments that have made Sitters for Scholars such a labor of love. Sitters share stories of the letters they receive from the kids they have spent time with. Graduating student parents share their accomplishments and express in many different ways that they could not have “done it without you!” As one student put it, “I have no family here to help me, but Sitters took care of my children like they were family.”

Student Parents – we thank you for your inspiration and applaud your hard work and achievement!

Volunteer Sitters – we thank you for your time, expertise, and kindness!

Community & Educational Partners – we thank you for your commitment to educate and serve low-income student parents!

Institutional Funders & Individual Donors – we thank you for your generous support throughout the past 10 years!

- The Sitters for Scholars Team